GORDON A. BAILEY

A TRIANGULATED PERSPECTIVE: THE POSITIVE, THE NEGATIVE, & THE CRITICAL

GORDON A. BAILEY BSC PHD

I was born in Montréal in 1946, raised in Minnesota and Saskatchewan and am now living in Victoria, BC. I taught Sociology at Capilano University in North Vancouver for eighteen years - commuting by ferry, transit and bicycle. My writing has included three books in sociology - on theory, on ideology, and an introductory text (still under construction). I am intending to shift my writing focus to essays, articles and various forms of fiction.

Current Writing

My current writing falls into two major domains fiction – poetry and short stories - and critical essays. [See critical essay in blog] Although my background and writing has been in the field of academic research and work, I now explore memoir, poetry, and the short story within a critical frame.

It has been stated that we have less reviews of books than before. Perhaps more importantly, we have fewer and fewer critics, of literature, and of society. I see my essay work as an attempt to probe, jostle, and push, the orthodoxy that seems ‘pre-settled’ by the various forms of media. The celebritization of everything, the currency given to anything and everything that shocks, the positivization of everything however trivial in various media seems destined to eventually lead to the demise of intelligent culture. Fanaticism needs to be out and explored!

The Prayer Book Cowboy. The eco-green detective has his own position on the Northern Gateway Pipeline and the Kinder Morgan refit. Cycling against the grain has become a 'vocation'!

The Jagged Cup. A mystery involving a ‘green’ bicycle-riding private investigator dealing with environmental issues in and around Vancouver, B.C. With levity and humour, the story provokes thought and provides information about a number of crucial environmental issues.

Short Stories from the Greek Islands, Always Cleavage to explorations of contemporary life in BC, The Bookstore, are being developed as a collection.

An essay, The Carpenter’s Triangle, exploring the idea of a more relational, thorough rendering of contemporary life – one that examines the dynamics of the positive, the negative, and the critical in order to observe, research, and act in more wholistic (not holistic – Mr. Gates) forms. [ blog: gabailey.com]

White Noise ... Black Oil (It's all about everything)

Noise and White Noise are different things. Each has a different history depending on different cultural settings. The quick, and to some (see R. Murray Schafer, 183), the most “satisfactory’ definition of Noise is “unwanted sound”.

White Noise has a more contradictory definitional dynamic. Schafer discusses how ‘white noise’ is engineered into modern buildings, “the screen of white noise, or as its proponents prefer to call it ‘acoustic perfume’. The hiss of the air-conditioner and the roar of the furnace …” (98). Perhaps it’s noise that hides or masks other sounds to some extent. Merriam-Webster Dictionary’s #2 definition, “meaningless or distracting commotion, hubbub, or chatter <the white noise of policy and politics in America – Joseph Nocera > (of the NYTimes).

An additional aspect of white noise is its potential capacity to aid ‘sleep’. When these various moments are woven together within the Canadian political context, there’s both a humorous and a tragic experience available. When one adds the concept of ‘Fascism’ – acoustic perfume – begins to stink!

I’ll let people find their own definitions of fascism. However, ‘harsh suppression of dissent’ with ‘intolerance of most other political ideologies’ gives some taste of it.

Our time, culturally, politically, economically, and perhaps most importantly, (but last on the list, particularly for our present federal government), ecologically or environmentally, demands recognition of both the individual and the community.